The Browns chased the Rams out of Cleveland in 1946 and then beat them in the NFL Championship Game in 1950. (Cleveland.com)
Super Bowl 56 is tangled in Browns history
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
Did you know that the Rams were once Cleveland’s NFL team?
That they relocated to Los Angeles in 1946, only to play the Browns in three NFL championship games in the 1950s?
Did you know that the Cincinnati Bengals are run by the son of the Browns’ founding coach who was 15 years old when the Browns and Rams played for the NFL title the first time?
Yes, Super Bowl 56 between the Rams and Bengals is loaded with storylines twisted into the history of the Cleveland Browns.
Rams connections
Los Angeles Rams
Generations of Browns fans don’t realize there was professional football in Cleveland before Paul Brown. The Cleveland Rams pre-dated the Browns by nine years.
Named after the Fordham University Rams, the favorite college team of the team’s first coach and GM, the Cleveland Rams debuted in the NFL in 1937, suspended play in 1943, returned a year later and captured the NFL championship in 1945.
Poor attendance, repeated financial hardships and the ballyhooed arrival of Brown’s franchise in the upstart All-America Football Conference convinced owner Dan Reeves to blast through a geographical barrier in professional sports and move the Rams to Los Angeles before the 1946 season.
Although Reeves faced opposition within NFL ranks, Cleveland fans were more excited to welcome Brown’s creation. There was hardly a ripple of outrage in the city of Cleveland about a franchise move that opened the West Coast as a gold mine for sports owners. A year later, MLB’s Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the rival New York Giants moved to San Francisco.
The Browns and Rams met for the NFL championship in 1950, 1951 and 1955. The Browns won in ’50 and ’55.
Kevin O’Connell, offensive coordinator
O’Connell is now commonly regarded as another limb of the Sean McVay coaching tree. But he received his first NFL coaching job with the Browns under coach Mike Pettine and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan in 2015 at the age of 30.
O’Connell left after one season to a special projects job with the 49ers when Shanahan asked to be relieved of his duties following rampant dysfunction centering on rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel.
Serving under McVay with Washington and now the Rams, O’Connell’s career has had a meteoric rise. He is expected to be named head coach of the Vikings after the Super Bowl.
Ray Farmer, senior personnel executive
One of the key principles in Browns dysfunction in 2015 and a big reason for Shanahan’s abrupt departure was Farmer.
As early as the team’s second game, the GM reportedly texted to an associate on the Browns’ sideline in the second half to have coaches insert Manziel in place of starter Brian Hoyer. Ultimately, Farmer was suspended four games by the NFL (served in 2016) for violating league electronic devices rules.
Farmer was fired by the Browns after 2016. He joined the Rams in 2020 and received an interview for the Jaguars’ GM vacancy a year ago.
Odell Beckham Jr., wide receiver
To date, Beckham has not commented on the messy public divorce from Baker Mayfield and the Browns, which resulted in his mutual release from the team on Nov. 8. Beckham effectively gave back a reported $3 million to the Browns so that no team claimed him and he could sign with the Rams.
In six games with the Browns in 2021, Beckham had 17 receptions on 34 targets for 232 yards and no touchdowns. In eight games with the Rams, Beckham had 27 receptions on 48 targets for 305 yards and 5 touchdowns. In three post-season games, Beckham added 19 receptions on 23 targets for 236 yards and 1 TD.
Beckham has earned $2.5 million in post-season incentives as part of his one-year deal with the Rams. He can add another $500,000 with a Rams win in the Super Bowl. The Rams want to bring him back next season.
Austin Corbett, right guard
Up until now, Corbett’s claim to fame was being selected by Browns GM John Dorsey two notches ahead of Nick Chubb at the top of the second round of the 2018 draft.
Corbett started at left tackle in 36 of 48 collegiate games for Nevada, but he could not nail down the position as a rookie. In his second training camp he was moved to right guard after the Browns traded Kevin Zeitler to the Giants. Corbett could not win the job there, either, however.
He was traded to the Rams in October of 2019 to the Rams for a fifth-round pick in 2021. Corbett has made 43 consecutive starts for the Rams at center or guard.
Bengals connections
Mike Brown, president and general manager
Brown was 15 years old when his father, the legendary Paul Brown, completed the Cleveland Browns’ first season in the NFL in 1950 with a 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the NFL championship game – known nowadays as the Super Bowl. The shocking win rocked the established NFL and begat a streak of six consecutive title game appearances for the Browns; they won three of them, solidifying Brown’s creation as the NFL’s first dynasty of the modern era.
Brown was 28 when his father was fired by upstart team owner Art Modell. It was such an unfathomable act – Paul Brown fired? – that a Cleveland newspaper columnist compared it to the Terminal Tower falling.
Brown was 33 when his father founded the Cincinnati Bengals, and he was 56 when he took over as owner and general manager following the death of his famous father.
The Bengals appeared in two Super Bowls under Paul Brown’s guidance, but suffered 19 losing seasons over the next 31 years with his son in charge. Mike Brown’s penurious ways earned him derision inside and outside the NFL. Agent Leigh Steinberg once described him as “a Don Quixote-type figure pushing back the forces of salary madness.”
The Bengals had lost seven consecutive post-season games until their unexpected run to the Super Bowl this year.
While the Cleveland Browns have achieved a turnaround under their current front office structure led by Ivy Leaguers Paul DePodesta (Harvard), Andrew Berry (Harvard) and Kevin Stefanski (Penn), it should be noted that the Brown family was first, as usual, in pioneering brain power to manage a football franchise. Mike Brown, now 86, is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
Brian Callahan, offensive coordinator
The son of Browns offensive line coach Bill Callahan has never worked on the same staff as his father.
A walk-on quarterback at UCLA, Brian began his coaching career in 2010 as an entry-level assistant with the Broncos at age 26 under Josh McDaniels. He moved on to the Lions and Raiders before Bengals coach Zac Taylor named him coordinator in 2019 – passing over QB coach Alex Van Pelt, who was a holdover from the Marvin Lewis staff. Van Pelt joined the Browns the next season as Stefanski’s offensive coordinator.
Callahan, who interviewed for the Broncos head coach vacancy last month, has the distinction of coaching both quarterbacks in this year’s Super Bowl – Matthew Stafford in Detroit and now Joe Burrow in Cincinnati.
Sigismondo (Louie) Cioffi, defensive quality control coach
Cioffi’s NFL story is one of perseverance. He recovered from two dysfunctional stints with the Browns and time served in the AAF and XFL. A long-time assistant under Marvin Lewis, Cioffi returned to the Bengals this year in a position usually occupied by younger, aspiring coaches.
Cioffi coached the Browns’ secondary under one-and-done coach Rob Chudzinski in 2013, and then returned in the first season of coach Hue Jackson in 2016. He was one of five defensive coaches fired by Jackson after the Browns went 1-15.
Defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi
As a 47-game starter for the Browns from 2017-20, Ogunjobi struck up a friendship with Bengals tackle Geno Atkins and trained with him in offseasons. When Atkins retired, the Bengals replaced him with Ogunjobi, who left the Browns for a one-year contract for $6.2 million.
Ogunjobi turned in the best season of his NFL career with personal highs of 16 quarterback hits, 12 tackles for loss, and 7 sacks. He added a fumble recovery in the Bengals’ wild-card win over the Raiders before suffering a severe foot injury that will require surgery.
